The Virgin Suicides

During the reading of The Virgin Suicides, the novel amalgamated the young and rebellious teens to 90’s society and how it impacted the Lisbon girls’ decision. The author expatiates on the rebelliousness of a particular sister who went against all consensus, “Lux’s brief unions were clandestine” (Eugenides). This sister was known to be rebellious because of not being able to go out and to what all the average teens were doing at her age. This idea that the author wrote about is similar to having the freedom to speak how one feels and also being able to take action in what an individual believes in without have the consensus of their parents. Rebelling in the 90’s was a way teens found themselves and also how some of the teens found new groups that related more so to the way they viewed society at the time. Too much restriction in an adolescent’s life can lead to suicide, depression and poor decision making. While other’s rebel to seek the attention of the people around them but mostly from the parents, which during the 1990’s it was common for both parents to have a job to support the family but it also affected the child’s life who felt that the parents worked so much because the child was a hindrance which wasn’t true at all. Another statement from the novel The Virgin Suicides where the author provides viable information on how, “adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it” (Eugenides)…

„The Virgin Suicides”, the debut novel of Greek-American author Jeffrey Eugenides, first published in 1993, is a retrospective relation of now middle-aged men, who investigate the story of five sisters, their teenage years’ obsession. The girls, aged from thirteen to seventeen, daughters of strict Catholic parents, were the boys’ neighbours in the suburbs in Michigan, until one summer of the 1970s, when one of them committed suicide and the rest followed their sister’s steps a year later. The…

The Virgin Suicides and The Catcher in the Rye are two painfully realistic American novels that share several commonalities. Throughout both of the stories many of the same themes, including sex, adolescence, rebelliousness and loss, are shared. One critic, William Poster, identifies Holden Caulfield as being “typical not so much of this adolescent class as a whole, but of a specific and extensive part of it, namely, those individuals who think of themselves as exceptions to the class by…

The Virgin Suicides, written by Jeffrey Eugenides, tells the story of five mysterious suicides of the Lisbon sisters. The narrators, a group of boys from the neighborhood and school of the Lisbon sisters later chastise the girls for being selfish in their eyes, inviting them over for a getaway ride (and hopefully for the boys, debauchery) but distracting them long enough that the sisters could kill themselves, which speaks of selfishness itself. Additionally, Eugenides greatly mirrors the…

The first menstruation, got “on the same day of the month as the other girls, […] all synchronized in their lunar rhythms” (Eugenides), is Cecilia’s body signal that she is biologically mature and able to bear pregnancy. She approaches womanhood and gets closer to the characteristics of a harlot, consequently further from a young and immaculate virgin. The blood is also inherently connected with defloration, in many cultures an indicator of becoming a sexually active woman, thus becoming a…

In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Sandman,” Nathanael falls in love with the object of his desires, the devastatingly gorgeous Olympia. Nathanael worships Olympia for her beauty, her muteness, and her lack of opinion. Eventually though, Nathanael realizes that Olympia is an automaton and has no substances because she is constructed merely to be the most perfect looking woman. Similarly, In Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides, The Lisbon sisters are worshipped solely for their bodies prohibiting them from…

noted though that The Virgin Suicides is as much about the boy’s journeys as the girl’s. A common misconception is that the film focuses on the motives for why the Lisbon girls committed suicide. The film is named after their fate, but it is ultimately about growing older and the shifting of perspectives of an idealistic child to an adult living in reality. At the beginning of the film, it seems the four boys share a collective love for the Lisbon sisters. It becomes apparent throughout that…

will be no new growth. Therefore, because nothing comes from their relationship as king and queen, the ritual of Homecoming or the Harvest Ritual has become empty. Also, Dominic Palazzo’s suicide attempt in the beginning of the book made the act of suicide an empty ritual. He jumped off the roof in an emotional outburst because he loved a girl and she was moving away. However, he survived, obviously because he did not jump from a high enough distance, and as the ritual was not completed it was…

Jeffrey Eugenides’ childhood greatly influenced his perspective of the urban decay created by the failure of the automotive industry in Detroit. His contemporary novel, The Marriage Plot, mirrors the unprecedented, rapid transition from prosperity to failure. Nevertheless, he presents his childhood in a positive manner due to his positive temperament, but this only causes him to further question the role of destructive upbringings, as seen in his novel, The Virgin Suicides. By exploring the…

suburbs, and conformity: What lies in the Virgin Suicides In the book The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides, gender roles of the characters were in the form of stereotypes within suburbia and the added stress of conforming to those stereotypes led them to breakdown. Gender roles was a reoccurring theme within the Virgin Suicides. This theme was shown through the perceptions of the Lisbon sisters, and Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon, by the neighborhood boys. Gender roles are nevertheless stereotypes for…